Yesterday was my son’s eighth birthday. This is the first year that we didn’t have a big party. I had no pre-party planning anxiety, which I usually do. It feel awkward and so nice, though. My husband, my son, and some of their friend’s went to Palm Springs. They went shooting in the desert, they saw swamp, and even saw the new Star Trek movie.

I spent the weekend working, cleaning, and well…cleaning. I took it as my chance to get caught up with some things. The house was spotless when they got home.

My husband texted me when they were leaving Palm Springs. I immediately ran out to the grocery store and bought some balloons to greet my son when they got home. I also went shopping with my mom at the local hockey store for some gifts for the kid. We {husband and I} got him a week at hockey camp during the summer.

My husband said that they had a good weekend and it was chill. I got to sleep in. Win-win!

My husband’s friends collected money and bought my son a Lego Millenium Falcon. It was pretty big but super cool. I’m impressed that it was already put together. My son was actually playing with it today. Usually he’s more of a Lego hoarder, as in “puts the Lego kit together, and never plays with it ever again”.

We took the kid to Chili’s for a birthday lunch. We told him that he could order anything he wanted from the desert menu. He responded with, “I want a margarita.” We forgot that it was a desert and drink menu, ooops!

Totally mello birthday. No blinking and noisy electronics for gifts. No overspending. No clutter!

How is everyone? Can you feel summer creeping up on you? Is it almost the end of the school year? Where did the time go?

Hello to some speedwork on the treadmill!

A little over a week ago, I ran the OC Marathon Half. I had no issues with my race, yippee! But I had to get back into my running post-race. My only problem was that the temperature is getting warmer out there, making it difficult to run during the day. I’ve had to work on my relationship with the treadmill, which has always been a love/hate thing.

I was cracking up though because everyone had been staring at the back of my leg. I realized that I still had my “Team Sparkle” tattoo on, and it looked brand new.

Hello to the end of the spring soccer season!

I signed my son up for soccer last minute this season. He was bored, and needed something to focus on. I think we totally lost the lack of focus a few games into it. I think the league is much smaller in the spring, so they had to merge some of the age groupings. He was older than most of the kids on his team, which was very noticeable.

So after Saturday’s game, the husband and I were quite relieved for it to be over. Although my son randomly got really good at defense in the last half of the game. Go figure!

Hello gluttony!

I am admitting publicly that I have a love for Mexican food. I can’t get enough of it. One of the main reasons that I keep running, so I can eat all of the good things…but not all of the time.

Hello to Mother’s Day!

I hope everyone had a great day yesterday! We went to brunch with some family friends in Newport Beach. I was a hot mess trying to cover up all of my awkward tan lines with a dress. It was pretty funny. I should also work on drying my hair before taking photos. At least the kid and I clean up well!

Hello to school {for the kid}, work {me and the hubs}, dentist appointments, run club {kid}, running {me}, and soccer {kid}!

Hello to never catching up!

You know how you always wish for a week free of commitments so you can just be lazy? And then that week happens, and you are totally bored and unmotivated?

Ya, that never happens around my house. I remember those times. But mostly, my house and life is chaos. My kitchen looks like this {with water bottles everywhere}, and my son’s bathroom looks like this {running clothes hanging}.

Hello to taking the kid out shopping!

My mom wanted my opinion on some things at Homegoods. We also made our way to Costco. My son was not impressed. But the chair he was sitting in, super cool!

Hello there new swimsuit!

I went to a blogger event at DownEast Basics last week and came home with a new swimsuit. I tried on a couple of things and went back and forth on them.

I’ve become really picky about clothing recently. I make sure that I really love something before I purchase it. I used to grab something off the rack, guess my size, and then I would live with it.

But…I did take a chance….that night. I LOATHE swimsuit shopping. But this blue and green tankini with cute little anchors caught my eye. And it fit! Super cute! It covers most of my lumps and bumps, and I feel comfortable in it! Win! Win!

Hello crazy dogs!

If it is sunny outside, our dogs love to go out and play in the front yard. Our backyard is like a concrete jungle so they get bored. As soon as I open the front door, they are practically begging to race through the house and run into the front yard.

And about five seconds later you hear growling amongst the two dogs. They love to play-fight with each other. I caught them in a stand off the other day.

I’m hoping that you had a great day so far! I started off the day with a 5 mile run with my pal, Heather. Although it is decent weather here in Southern California, we whined about the cold….the entire run! We also whined about getting up early {we met up at 5:45am}, and the super fast runners that kept passing us. But in the end, the miles flew by and I arrived home at 7am with today’s run done.

Happy Valentine’s Day To Everyone!

I sent the kid to school today in a boy-themed Valentine’s Day shirt. I’m lucky that I can still get him to wear shirts like this. It’s only a matter of time folks. He’s growing up so fast.

I volunteered at my son’s class party. Lots of chaos, as usual. I helped with a bookmark craft project, which involved threading beads onto a string and tying tiny knots. My hands are way too chunky and clumsy for a chore like this. I ended up taking some pictures after I was done tying the tiny knots onto the bookmarks. Oy….why are these Holiday crafts so time consuming, and involve way too much adult help?

My son {age 7, second grade} took these Valentine’s to hand out at school. This is the 3rd year in a row, that he has taken handmade cards/items. Even my husband has turned into a snob. He says, blah….get some creativity people when he saw the normal store bought cards. HAHAHA!

We {I, me} made these items super fast. They were easy once I had all of the supplies at hand. My son absolutely loved them!! I found them on Paging Supermom. I made these photo cards in Kindergarten, and the fish bowl cards in first grade.

My son came home with a TON of Valentine’s Day stuff in his backpack this year, the most I’ve ever seen. It was almost like Halloween again. Of course, he had already eaten all the good candy, the kid is smart.

I’m going to relax the rest of the night. We have nothing special planned, and I’m ok with that. Honestly….

I had a heck of a time trying to figure out a Holiday card for our family this year. We didn’t have professional photos taken this year, nor did we have a photo with all 3 of us together. But at the last minute, I decided to use a photo that I took on my iPhone while we were in Palm Springs a few weeks ago.

If this your first time here, HELLO! I do a link-up every Wednesday! Post a picture(s) and link back to it here. Wordless Wednesday is a great day to post an awesome picture that “speaks” for itself, no words needed.

Be sure to check out Wordless Wednesday Link-Ups at these other sites also:

I was worried that Angry Kid would be sick for the kid’s run since he had a bad cough the day before, but he got up early in the morning with me to make it to the race.

Being that it was a “Santa Themed Race”, I had to get all dressed up for the festive occasion. I got some Christmas accessories prior to the event at Claire’s. It is extremely hard to find any Christmas-themed knee socks in December. I was lucky to stumble along a Claire’s while in Palm Springs the weekend prior. I paired my striped knee socks with a green Team Sparkle Skirt and my slime green Saucony Kinvara 3’s. My slime green shoes have been declared my “race shoes” because they were special edition and sold out super fast.

Now that my hair has gotten longer, I can do more things with it. I twisted the sides of it, and put my hair in a low ponytail in the back. I cannot stand my hair flopping around when I’m running. After my hair was all content, I added my awesome sparkly elf hat!

While heading for the start of the race, and finding my place in the race corrals, I ran into Heather. We got a pre-race photo together. Heather ran the 10K that day.

Heather and I had fun while waiting for the race to start with looking at the umm entertaining “costumes” that people were wearing for the race. We were unsure about what some of the costumes were supposed to be.

And then the race was on…

The race was basically a loop on a neighborhood bike trail/path. It had rained the night before so part of the trail was made up of dirt and gravel was somewhat slippery. I haven’t felt quite right since I had the flu a few weeks ago and I could totally feel it during the run. Also, I’ve decided that I’m more of a night runner now. I have more energy at the end of the day. I finished in a decent time, but I wasn’t really impressed with myself, 33:02. BLAH!

The best part was the last .1 of the race. I saw my son waiting at the finish line for me, cheering me on. He was standing near my mom and Jenn’s husband. Jenn’s husband was able to capture me running past on video. I was carrying my iPhone so I did a hand off to my son while running.

Jenn and I also got a post-race photo together.

Before I met up with Jenn, she had been looking for me. Her husband took a cute photo of their son and mine. Key factor: The boys have the same name.

We hung around and watched the 5K Finisher’s Awards and participated in the costume contest before the kid’s race. Angry Kid almost won one of the kid’s costume categories, but a cute little reindeer (girl) won instead. And the adult’s division was super difficult to win, so many awesome costumes.

After watching the 5K awards and both of us doing the costume contest, Angry Kid almost missed the kid’s race. We both ran to the starting line. He was able to start with the group, and he finished pretty fast also. I was so proud of him because he has had some “issues” running races this year. But he finished strong this time.

He was very proud of earning the medal for running the race!

Oh, and here was my entire costume for the run, post-race. My son took the photo. This was the best of five photos.

It was my first time doing the Santa Run. I knew that parking would be an issue but we got there around 7am, an hour before the race, and we were fine. Because of the rain, it was a bit slippery, but I just made sure to watch my footing. It got crowded at some of the narrower spots, but it eventually opened up. Angry Kid had a blast doing the kid’s run too!

Last weekend I hopped on the freeway right after I picked the kid up from school. We headed towards Palm Springs. My parent’s have a place there and I hadn’t been for awhile. Plus it was a lot warmer there than it was at home in Orange County. We got stuck in some traffic but we finally made it there.

My son and I are both doing races this weekend. He is doing a 1/2 mile run and I’m doing a 5K. We(Me) were looking for fun Holiday-themed hats. I think he makes a cute elf, although we ended up with a different hat. Boo!

This kid is always on the iPad. Because you know “he’s bored”. My dad took this photo while my mom and I were shopping. Because that is what we do in Palm Springs. I think we were supposed to be Christmas shopping.

My son posted for my dad in front of a Christmas tree. And my dad thought that this was super funny, because on the other side of the tree, people were taking dog portraits with Santa. It was a special event where people could have professional photos taken of their dog and Santa together. Too funny. There was quite of variety of dogs. And what the heck is with the Sorority pose that my son is doing?

Even though the pool wasn’t heated, the kid decided to go in. He also decided to throw all of his pool toys into the pool, which hit the very bottom. My dad gave him the pool net to try and grab them. In between grabbing the toys, he was cleaning the pool.

It is super hard being a California kid. Pool time in December. I wanted my mom to drag out the Christmas tree to put in the photo. Because then I would finally have a picture for my Holiday cards. Not-so-much! I totally regret it now.

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Welcome to “Angry Julie Monday’s Wordless Wednesday Linky”!

If this your first time here, HELLO! I do a link-up every Wednesday! Post a picture(s) and link back to it here. Wordless Wednesday is a great day to post an awesome picture that “speaks” for itself, no words needed.

Be sure to check out Wordless Wednesday Link-Ups at these other sites also:

So my son is sorta obsessed with that song, “Gangnam Style” {over 900 million hits on YouTube} by Psy. Have you heard of it? I’m sure you have. While listening to the radio sometime in early November, I heard KIIS FM advertise their “Jingle Ball”concert series that was happening on two dates in December, and Psy was performing on one of the dates. I immediately went to their website to find out more about the concerts. I also found out that both dates were SOLD OUT! Luckily there is this awesome website called Stubhubwhere you can buy and sell tickets to events. I bought my parents some tickets to a baseball game on Stubhub a few months ago, and my mom was very impressed with the service.

The concert was at Nokia Live, which is in Los Angeles. It is quite a drive from Orange County. I hadn’t told my son about the concert, because I didn’t want him to be an absolute spaz {freak} while at school that day. After work, I picked him and my mom up and we jumped on the freeway. About ten minutes into the drive, he would not shut up about asking where we were going, so I told him. I said that we were going to see his favorite singer, Psy. He literally did a fist pump in the air, and said, “yes yes yes”. He was a wee bit excited after that.

We got there early enough to eat dinner at ESPN Zone and to take some pictures. They had a beautiful Christmas tree, which was right in the middle of an outdoor ice skating rink. The kid really wanted to go ice skating, but umm hello, we had a concert to attend.

We finally got in line and headed in to find our seats. We were in the “orchestra section” which was perfect. I know that this sounds super expensive, but it wasn’t that bad. The tickets were about $125 each, and this was part of my son’s Christmas present.

I will have to say that the “production” of this show was amazing. KIIS FMseemed to have everything covered. The graphics and video monitors were fantastic, and the transitions between the different artists was flawless. While the artists {musicians, DJs, etc} were transitioning, they had some great videos of the KIIS FM staff playing, plus some celebrities speaking in the audience.

On each of the seats were foam light sticks, which were sponsored by #G by Guess. My son loved these light sticks, especially when the DJs were playing. I took a picture of Angry Kid and my mom before the show started. He is always making silly faces for the camera now. He is super tired of me taking a thousand pictures of him.

I was able to get pictures of most of the groups that played that night. Not all of the photos came out well. Nokia Live looked super awesome when all of the lights were turned off and you could see all of the light sticks lit up.

The first performer onstage was Owl City. I will have to admit that I’ve never heard of them before this event. I actually had to go online and do some research to see who they were. Trivia: Owl City has a song on the Wreck-It-Ralph movie, “When Can I see You Again?”.

After Owl City, The Wanted came on to perform. I’ve started to hear The Wanted, more and more on the radio. YES, I listen to the radio still, actually KIIS FM. I mostly use the I Heart Radio app on my iPhone when I’m trying to be productive at work.

The Wanted are British, which kinda made my mom and I swoon a little. They seemed like a great group of guys and were really interactive with the audience. I played their song, “Glad You Came” on my iPhone like one time for my son, and he was singing along when The Wanted sang that as their last song of the night. My son really likes them too. Just don’t tell my husband that the kid likes this kind of music, giggle.

My son was amazed at Zedd’s performance. Zedd is an electro-house producer aka DJ. With neon images on the screen behind him, and the bass thumping, my son was able to get the most out of his light stick, and got his groove on also. My favorite part was when he played Calvin Harris’ “Feel So Close”, which is one of my top ten songs right now. My mom commented on how she “could feel the floor thumping”. I said, “Yep, it’s almost like we are at a rave”.

After the thumping from Zedd, we were treated to an acoustic performance from Fun. It was a nice change and really listening to Fun was super fun! My favorite part was when they ended with their hit, “We Are Young”. It was super popular in the Spring and Summer, and I knew every word, of course. The entire audience was singing along and it was AMAZING. It left a big smile on my face.

After Fun ended, the bass started thumping again with Afrojack. Afrojack another electro-house producer had quite a production with awesome graphic images on the screen behind him, and special guests like Shermanology and even Pitbull. I had heard Afrojack’s productions before, but seeing him in concert was awesome. I think Afrojack’s performance was probably my most favorite from The Jingle Ball. He mixed all of the songs that I love and made them even better as compilations. With the bass turned up, the light sticks, and the graphics, it was almost like I was in a dance club. The kid was dancing all around. He is also quite obsessed with Afrojack now, and wants to hear “more music from him”.

And then Psy came onstage…I thought my son might start crying when he saw Psy up there. He started screaming so much. My mom and I were giggling at his excitement. It was just too cute. I’m not sure if my mom realized how obsessed the kid was.

It was pretty hilarious to watch a 7-year old boy standing on his chair at a concert, dancing along to “Gangnam Style”. It was also quite impressive. My mom was amazed. You can kind of see her in the picture just staring at him. Even though Psy came onstage and sang that one and only song, my son was super happy! And my mom got to observe his dancing skills, the kid obviously, not Psy’s.

With all of these awesome artists, you would think that the night would be over already…but oh no, there were still three performances to go on. My son was starting to get tired, but as soon as the music started, he was up dancing again.

Flo Rida was the next up on the stage. I know must of Flo Rida’s songs, just because I probably have all of them downloaded onto my iPhone. His music is great for running. With the addition of the singer, StayC, onstage with him, it was a great performance. Flo Rida actually ran around the stage and threw money out in the audience, which was a bit crazy, but fun for everyone up front, I’m sure. Flo Rida also got onto a security guard’s shoulders and went up and down the aisles singing to the audience. I completely forgot that he sang, “Apple Bottom Jeans” but the audience roared with delight when that song started up.

I posted this photo of me and the kid during the concert on Instagram while we were still there. Doesn’t he look happy? I think so! Best concert ever!

I was squealing with excitement when Ke$ha came on. With a gold leotard, glitter, sequins, and sparkle….Ke$ha was quite a visualization. Her music is on the top of my running playlists.

Although many people might not like Ke$ha, I enjoyed her performance. Ke$ha also covered almost every rock concert cliche that you could get: 1. leotard 2. ripped tights 3. glitter 4. sequins 5. sparkly microphone 6. back-up dancers 7. playing the guitar 8. dancing 9. playing a drum(s) and 10. attempting to do a cartwheel.

But really I have left a major part of the night out. Justin Bieber was the headliner of this concert. Justin Bieber was probably the main reason that most people were actually at this event. There were thousands of girls wearing t-shirts with his picture on it. They were screaming his name throughout the night. It was quite obnoxious actually.

My son kept asking me why all of these girls were screaming and crying over Justin Bieber. I just laughed. He was started to get tired at the end of the night and I said that we would leave before he came on…and then the chanting started. He decided that we needed to stay a few more minutes until Justin Bieber was onstage, so that he could check it all out.

When Justin Bieber came onstage everyone was chanting and then people started crying when he came on and starting singing. It was quite a sight. But the kid barely lasted through one song, he commented “I’m ready to go now, he sounds like a girl when he sings”..and with that we left.

I posted about getting these tickets and being excited about it on my Facebook Fan Page. I got tons of nasty comments, so I deleted the post. Geez people!! There were thousands of kids in the audience, and for the most part, this was a pretty kid-friendly concert. I mean really, Justin Bieber was the headliner for this event. My kid had a blast and passed out asleep right when he sat in the car. He was fine at school the next day and asked when the next concert was.

But really, Justin Bieber coming on-stage at 10:30pm was super late, and enough of the crotch grabbing Biebs…

P.S. I highly recommend The Jingle Ball and cannot wait to see who’s playing at it next year!

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